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Surprising Science

What Color Is Your Bra?

Female Facebook users are posting the color of their bras in order to raise breast cancer awareness.
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Female Facebook users are posting the color of their bras in order to raise breast cancer awareness. “Female Facebookers started catching on this week as a message made its rounds through the inboxes of the social media network. ‘We are playing a game for Breast Cancer Awareness,’ one form of the message read. ‘Write the color of your bra as your status — just the color, nothing else!! Copy this and pass it on to all girls — NO MEN!! This will be fun to see how it spreads.’ By Friday, all the colors of the Victoria’s Secret rainbow were present in users’ news feeds when they logged in. A spokeswoman for Facebook said it’s not clear where or how the message started, calling it an example of a grass-roots movement beginning on the social networking site. ‘What is particularly unique about this grass-roots campaign is that it seems to have been started by a user or group of users, as opposed to an official entity, and spread virally throughout Facebook,’ Facebook’s Malorie Lucich said. ‘It’s an ideal example of how an individual voice can be magnified to create awareness for a good cause and ignite action among millions by using a site like Facebook.’ Breast cancer groups say they are happy that the disease, which affects more than 200,000 women in the United States a year, is getting attention.”

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